"The Challenge of Closing Guantánamo" subject of LAPA talk February 26

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The Woodrow Wilson School's Program in Law and Public Affairs (LAPA) will host a public lecture with David H. Remes, an attorney whose clients include 16 Guantánamo detainees, titled "The Challenge of Closing Guantánamo - Experiences and Reflections of a Guantánamo Habeas Lawyer," on Thursday, February 26 at 8:00 p.m., in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall.

David Remes is a human rights lawyer who has been deeply involved in the litigation on behalf of Guantanamo prisoners since 2004. He represents 16 Yemenis and has made several visits to Yemen to press for his clients' release and brief their families. He was among the first lawyers to visit Guantánamo after the Supreme Court ruled in Rasul v. Bush in 2004 that the prisoners had a right to legal counsel. He has since visited the base more than a dozen times, most recently last month, and was with his clients the day President Obama ordered Guantánamo closed.

Remes was among the lead counsel for the petitioners in Boumediene v. Bush, in which the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the prisoners have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in court. He also represented retired generals and admirals and coordinated the friend-of-the-court briefing in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which the Court ruled, in 2006, that the President's military commissions were unlawful. For many years, Remes was a partner at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, D.C. In July 2008, he gave up his partnership to found Appeal for Justice, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to Guantánamo and other human rights litigation.